“I look…I look…like such a fool,” she whispered, and then louder, as if the words had been ripped from her: “How could you do this to me?”
Lizzie threw her a look like a plea. She began to vibrate where she stood in a teeth-chattering tremble from head to foot so intense she could barely stand still. It was the first time Effie could remember not rushing to Lizzie’s aid when her friend needed her to, and she felt the beginnings of a fissure in her heart that she didn’t know how to stop.
I don’t owe you anything anymore.
Anna’s face, too, had closed like shutters on a shop; she looked pained. The air seemed to gain in density, harder and thicker to breathe in, as though it were curling around their ankles like mist instead, and there was a collective shifting of weight in the room as the women braced themselves for the impact of whatever came next.
“After everything we’ve been through,” Effie said quietly, though her voice began to rise like a plane readying its engines for takeoff. “After everything I did for you!”
Then a noise, behind them. The heavy door opening. A sweep of rubber sole on tile, the clearing of a throat.
Ben stepped into the library. “I think I know what you’re talking about,” he began earnestly. “And we owe it to Effie to come clean—about us.”
He lingered on the end of the last word like a snake with its hiss, and Lizzie’s mouth formed a straight line of pearly teeth and anger in response.
“Fine!” she choked. “Fine, let’s have it all out in the open.”
Ben approached her, hands outstretched and tenderness in his eyes—directed at Lizzie, Effie thought bitterly. Only at Lizzie.
“Do you want to tell it,” he asked gallantly, “or shall I?”
43. Lizzie
Trapped again. Boxed in by lies—only this time, they were mine. I’d had to lie to Effie to stay one step ahead; I knew I needed to be on the front foot from now on if I were to have any chance of stopping Ben.
But, my God, with the two women who knew me best staring at me like we’d never met before—and the knowledge that, soon enough, he’d have me cornered again—I couldn’t see how I’d ever manage to pull it off. I had to install one more roadblock between me and Effie—for the simple purpose of protecting her from herself.
From the truth, really. If that came out—if the photos did—that was the end of everything. Not for me, but for Effie.
So I walled us in further, bricked us up in Ben’s tangled story to protect us a little while longer—until I could work out what else I could do. I couldn’t risk the chance of Effie forcing him into the revenge he really wanted: a showdown in which the truth was revealed, and the pictures were too.
My mind grasped for a way to convey to Effie and to Anna that whatever words might be coming out of my mouth, they should be reading the silent scream behind my eyes instead. But the yarn Ben had spun was horribly, deliberately believable, and my behavior for the last six months so bizarre and aloof, I had given them no reason to doubt it.
“Ben and I met in Bangkok,” I said sullenly. “You probably remember me telling you about the date I went on there. And when I got home, I met Dan and I thought that was that.”
“But then—fate!” said Ben, eagerly picking up the thread, some grotesque happy-go-lucky look on his face. “Fate brought us together again at the engagement party. We had no idea of the link—and neither did Dan—but, when he found out…Well, you remember what I told you—this was the reason he became the way he did. I’m afraid me and Lizzie were the trigger.”
Effie shook her head and laughed bitterly, looking from his face to mine. Perhaps she was thinking he owed her nothing, but me…I owed her almost everything. My job, my happiness: the life I had woven for myself would never have happened without her help all those years ago. Now Ben was unpicking every last stitch of it.
When she spoke, her lip curled and the ugly contempt looked foreign on her usually mild features. “Then why, why, bring me into it? Why start something up with me, if you two were going to get back together?”
I closed my eyes and answered for him. “Because he didn’t know, Eff. I didn’t tell him about Dan’s behavior until last week, when I canceled the wedding. And I didn’t know about you two until a few days after that. Otherwise…Of course. I would never have knowingly let you get tangled up in all this.”
This much, at least, was true.
I saw Ben give a small nod at my performance—if it worked, Effie would at least be free of him by the end of tomorrow, when we all got home. Whether I would or not, I still had no idea—but I could tell that my best friend wouldn’t be around when I found out. I had seeded too much doubt along with the story Ben wanted me to tell her; the trust—that incredible, rare alchemy we had nurtured between us over the years—was gone.
“Right,” Effie said, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Right.”
Anna swooped to embrace her with arms that I desperately wanted to feel around my shoulders, pressing me in toward the two of them, where I belonged. But the gesture spoke so loudly, she might as well have pushed me away with her other hand.
“I’ve always known you could be selfish, Lizzie,” Effie said. “And thoughtless in pursuit of your own happiness, your own gain. But I really thought I deserved more
